Practice Makes Perfect
by Doctor Strangelove
Summary: In order to kill time and relieve some stress, Matt and Ted engage in a little experimentation. Things don't go exactly as planned. Slash [MattTed]


"I was joking, Parkman."

"I know. Of course. I was joking too."

"Good."

"I'm just saying…"

Ted let out a groan of frustration and buried his face in his hands. "We are _not_ having sex, Parkman."

"No, of course not. I know. It's a ridiculous idea. I know." Matt turned his head away from Ted in embarrassment, mumbling under his breath, "You were the one that brought it up."

"As a joke!" A serious level of exasperation was quickly becoming apparent in Ted's voice. "I was _joking_. I do not want to have sex with you. We are not going to have sex. I have absolutely no intentions of fucking your pudgy ass."

Matt stared defiantly in response, his face stone and expressionless, but with a faint hint of hurt in his voice, "That was uncalled for."

"Well I'm sorry if I hurt your little girl feelings, but it's not happening." Ted grabbed Matt's face in one hand, forcing him to make eye contact, and gestured emphatically with his other hand to make his point perfectly clear. "Now, yes, I did, in jest, suggest that we could relieve some stress and kill some time by sleeping together. The smile on my face when I said it should've clued you in. As you may recall, I don't do that very often. When do I smile? When I'm fucking _joking_, Parkman.

"Admittedly, I haven't gotten laid in a damn long while. So, yeah, I'm pretty fucking horny. And yes, forced to choose between you and Bennet, I'd bend you over the hood of that car we stole in a heartbeat. Partly because I'm sure it'd be pretty easy, you've got the look of a guy who's been fucked before, but mainly because I fucking loathe Bennet. You're the lesser of two supremely annoying evils. But no one is forcing me to choose, so I'm going to cheerfully abstain. Beating off is working just fine for me.

"Now I don't know if I've made myself perfectly clear, so let me summarize: I was joking. We're not having sex. Understand?"

Matt jerked his head away and nodded. "Yeah. I got it."

"Good."

Mumbling under his breath, Ted dropped his hand from Matt's face and moved over to sulk in one corner of the tiny motel room the two were sharing. Matt, for his part, stayed rooted in the spot he had been standing, shifting uncomfortably and avoiding further eye contact. He wasn't exactly sure what to say, as everything that came to mind was likely to set Ted off on another tirade. He was mostly speechless, until he happened to pick up one of Ted's stray thoughts. "Oh, I do not believe you!"

Ted's face curled into even more of a frown, "What?"

"Mind reader, Ted, you god damn hypocrite." Matt crossed the room, getting right in Ted's face. "You rant and rave at me, and now you're thinking about the same damn thing."

"I'm not thinking anything, Parkman. You're picking up someone else's thoughts."

"There's no one else in the room, Ted! And I'm really curious as to who else would be fantasizing about me with _your_ cock in my mouth." Ted opened his mouth to argue, but it quickly fell shut when he realized he had no leg to stand on. It's hard to fight with a mind read. Matt shook his head in disgust, before looking Ted up and down with one wary eye. "If you suck me off, I'll let you fuck me."

"What!?"

"You heard me," Matt offered with a shrug. "Come on, we're both thinking it, Ted. I haven't gotten laid in quite a while myself. We're both horny as hell, so let's just get it over with."

Mouth agape and eyes wide, Ted scoffed and shuffled his feet before whispering in a weak voice, "Okay."

"Alright then." Matt began to unbutton his shirt as Ted peeled his own off and tossed it in a corner.

As his hands began to unzip the fly of his jeans, Ted glared at Matt with a threatening look, "If anyone finds out about this…"

"Who am I going to tell, Ted? Trust me, I want to keep this under wraps just as much as you do." Matt let out a stifled laugh as Ted grumbled and pulled his jeans down to his ankles, "Nice tighty whities."

"Shut up, Parkman." Ted snarled, pulling his briefs down as well and kicking them and his pants off his feet.

Matt fell back into a sitting position on the bed as he removed his own pants, and he found himself staring in awe at Ted's naked body. "Jesus. Look at that thing. You're not even hard yet. What are you, part horse?"

"Too much for you? You seemed pretty eager a minute ago."

His pants completely off, Matt relaxed on the firm mattress clad only in his boxers and socks. "No, it's… I don't think it'll be a problem. Should be fine, I guess. I haven't actually done this before."

"Neither have I." A slight breeze blew across the room and Ted rubbed his arms in an attempt to keep himself warm. "You gonna actually get undressed for this, Parkman? I can't exactly blow you through your boxers."

"Uh, yeah, right." With one quick motion, Matt shed himself of his boxer shorts, frowning at the snickering coming from Ted. "Oh shut up. It's cold in here."

"Whatever. So, um, how exactly do we get this started? Do we kiss or something?"

"I think we can leave that part out. Skip the foreplay and just get right to it," Matt shrugged. "You're probably going to have to come over to this side of the room, though."

Crossing the room and letting out one final sigh, a sign that he was out of ways to procrastinate and had finally resolved to just get things over with, Ted got down onto his knees in front of Matt. A nervous look on his face, he hesitantly reached out one hand and grabbed hold of Matt.

"Not so hard." Matt inhaled sharply at the rough grip Ted had him in. "If you're going to jerk me off, a little gentler would be nice. Just do it like you do it yourself."

"Sorry, it's smaller than I'm used to." Even in the most intimate of situations, Ted still found a way make wisecracks.

"Fuck you, Ted." Ted winced as Matt gave a light kick to his thigh. "I think you're supposed to be giving me a blowjob instead of being a snarky son of a bitch."

"Those two aren't mutually exclusive." The small laugh from Matt eased the tension between the two men, and Ted prepared to take Matt's stiffening erection into his mouth. "Don't come in my mouth, Parkman."

"Wasn't planning on it, Ted."

"Good. Keep not planning on it." With one last shrug of surrender, Ted took a deep breath and flicked out his tongue, running it across the base of Matt's hard-on. He grimaced at the taste, but a deal was a deal, so he cautiously wrapped his lips around the head. Unsure of exactly how to proceed, Ted kept his head stationary for a few moments before Matt cleared his throat, coaxing him into proceeding. Ted quickly ran through in his mind what he had seen blonde buxom beauties do in porn and slowly moved his head up and down the shaft of Matt's cock.

The entire process was not exactly what Matt had been hoping for. "Come on, put a little effort into it, Ted. Just do what you know you like. Have you ever actually had a blowjob before?"

"Karen didn't like to do it, okay?" Ted groused, giving Matt an irritated look. _Ungrateful ass._

Matt rubbed his temples with the heels of his hands and let out an exasperated sigh. When Ted had agreed to go down on him, he hadn't imagined he would have to walk the man through it. "Well put a little more work into it. Don't be so timid. And it's a little dry; try to use more saliva when you're doing it."

Ted smirked, "You mean like this?"

"Actually, if you could refrain from literally _spitting_ on my dick in the future, that'd be great. I meant you should use your tongue, you asshat."

"Well I'm sorry if I'm not the blowjob-giving expert you are, Parkman."

Matt took a calming breath. Getting to know Ted biblically was proving to be more trouble than it was worth. But once he got started Matt was the type to see an endeavor all the way through, and if that meant a little coaching, so be it. "Don't just move your head up and down. You need to use some suction, like you're eating a popsicle. Just close your eyes and imagine that."

"Popsicles don't generally taste like a jockstrap, Parkman." Ted rolled his eyes in annoyance but decided that if he wanted Matt to help him get off later, he should probably just do what the man says. Sliding Matt's erection into his mouth, Ted followed the instructions he had been given and circled his tongue around the head. His eyes closed, he tried to pretend he was somewhere else, just sucking on a popsicle instead of another man's cock. "This better?"

"Yeah, that's… that's good." This was nowhere close to being the best blowjob Matt had ever has in his life, but under the circumstances he wasn't going to complain. It's rude to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when that mouth is buried in your crotch. Ted may not be expertly skilled in fellatio, but Matt figured it was still better than his own right hand. "Try using your hands some too. Stroke whatever you're not sucking, or, you know, play with my balls some."

"You can play with your own damn balls." Ted grumbled, but he did obligingly wrap one hand around the base of Matt's cock, attempting to jerk him off in time with his sucking. He couldn't quite get the rhythm down; his hand seemed determined to move much faster than his mouth. Deciding that Ted didn't seem to handle criticism well, Matt figured it was best not to point that fact out. He stroked one hand through Ted's hair in an attempt to provide some non-verbal guidance, but his arm was quickly swatted away.

Ted was attempting to focus all his energy on the task at hand and didn't appreciate distractions like being caressed by a former cop. This was merely an exchange of services, and Ted wanted to keep any touches of intimacy out of it. No kissing. No foreplay. No lingering touches. Just old-fashioned sucking, thrusting, and fucking that afterwards both men would pretend had never happened.

His offers of guidance not being well met, Matt decided that leaning back and just attempting to enjoy Ted's efforts was the best solution. His thoughts immediately wandered to his wife, who was infinitely better than Ted at this, and whom he hadn't been with in far too long. He closed his eyes and imagined he was back in their bedroom, with Janice between his legs lovingly stroking and sucking on him in just the right way. She knew exactly what to do to please her husband, and every little moan and whimper that escaped her lips was specifically designed to bring him closer to climax.

His hips thrust forward of their own accord, causing Ted to choke on Matt's member. He pulled back, and, after he was able to catch his breath, glared angrily at Matt. "Don't fucking fuck my face, Parkman." Ted's glare stayed plastered on his face as he moved to resume fellating Matt, but the other man pushed him away and slid back on the bed.

"I can't do this."

"You're not backing out on me, are you?" Ted asked, one eyebrow arched in irritation.

"No, I'm- I can't do this." As much as Matt wanted to pretend, this wasn't his home he was in. He could close his eyes and lie to himself, but underneath that layer of denial he knew that this wasn't how he and Janice made love. The pressure being applied against his muscles and the way the fingertips grazed against his flesh were all foreign, and the stubble brushing against his scrotum definitely didn't belong to his wife. "We shouldn't be doing this. I have a wife, Ted. A _pregnant_ wife."

This outburst seemed to remove some of the venom from Ted's taunting, and he found himself compelled to point out what he thought should be obvious, "She cheated on you."

"I know," Matt whispered with a slow nod, "but that doesn't make this okay."

"So…" Ted glanced around the room, as if trying to collect his thoughts. "What now?"

"I don't know."

"Alright." Ted shifted uncomfortably on the heels of his feet, grabbing his shirt from the floor and letting it hang lifelessly from his hand, covering his exposed privates. "It's pretty late; we should probably get dressed and get some sleep. You're a good guy, Parkman."

"Yeah, and look where it's gotten me," Matt slumped back on the bed, ignoring Ted's suggestion to redress himself. "I can't advance in my job. My wife's cheating on me with a man I considered a pretty good friend. She's pregnant with a baby that's probably not even mine. Add to that that I'm my way to take down some paper company that kidnapped me in the past. My life's not exactly going the way I always dreamed it would.

"It's just… Do you have any idea how exhausting it gets being a good guy all the fucking time?"

"I did have a life before I became a fugitive, you know," Ted plopped down on the bed next to Matt, still shamefully covering himself with his shirt. "I had a wife, a house, and a nice normal job that didn't involve getting shot. I don't have anything now. You may be exhausted, but trust me; the alternative isn't exactly the world's funnest lifestyle. Maybe it's better to just find some sort of middle ground."

"Fuck me."

To say that was taken aback by Matt's statement would be a bit of an understatement. "What?"

Sitting up, Matt looked Ted directly in the eyes. "You heard me. Fuck me, Ted."

"You were just saying… What about your wife?"

Matt paused, stumbling over his own thoughts. "She… I don't care. I know that's a terrible thing to say, but… I don't even know if I have a marriage to go back to. And I'm not saying that means it's okay for me to cheat, but I really just don't care right now. It's now about me getting back at her; this doesn't have anything to do with Janice. _I_ need this, Ted."

Ted looked away with a troubled look on his face, and Matt resisted the urge to read his mind. "You sure you want this, Parkman?"

Shaking his head, Matt offered a weak laugh, "No. I'm not really sure of anything anymore."

"Okay," Ted slowly nodded, "Okay. How do you want me to… How do you want to do this?"

"Oh, right," Matt quickly realized that in psyching himself up, he hadn't given any thought to the actual physical act itself. "I guess face down would work the best."

As Matt turned over onto his hands and knees, Ted dropped his shirt to the floor and positioned himself on his knees behind Matt. "Do I need to prep you or anything?"

Matt let out a deep breath, wanting things to just go ahead and get started. "You know, I'm just going to stare at this headboard, and you just do whatever you need to do."

Ted gave a little nod even though Matt couldn't see him and placed his hands on Matt's hips to balance himself. Spitting into his palm, Ted ran a slick hand over his cock and thrust his hips forward. Unfortunately, his aim wasn't entirely accurate, and he ended up sliding between Matt's legs and hitting the other man squarely in the testicles.

"Ow! Damnit, Ted, watch what you're doing!" Matt whipped his head around to give Ted an angry glare. "That's not what that goes."

"Sorry, I wasn't looking; I was just sort of aiming."

"You might want to actually look at where you stick that thing."

"Okay, okay." Reapplying a healthy dose of saliva to his member, Ted leaned down slightly to make certain he was positioning himself directly at Matt's opening. "Here goes nothing." Ted began to slowly press the head of his cock into Matt before deciding that a quicker approach might work better; with a quick shrug, he gave a forceful push of his hips and successfully inserted nearly half his length inside Matt.

"Oh god damn!" A deep and pained groan escaped Matt's lips and he shoved his head into a pillow, biting onto a clenched fist to keep quiet.

"Too much?" Ted asked warily.

"It's fine," Matt barked out, the pillow muffling his voice, "Just keep going."

"Can do. Just relax a little, Parkman," Now that they had actually gotten started fucking, Ted was certainly eager to continue, but the way Matt's muscles were clenching around him, while very pleasant, was not making his task any easier. Breathing in and out deeply, Matt attempted to calm himself, and it worked well enough that managed to work himself in all the way to the base of his member. Letting out a satisfied sigh, he commented, "Wow, Parkman, you're really… it's very tight. Nice. How does it feel?"

"Like you just shoved your dick up my ass, Ted." Matt let out an exasperated sigh. "How the hell do you think it feels? Would you just hurry up and get on with it?"

"Sure thing, Parkman."

Matt waited for Ted to begin thrusting into him, but after a few moments neither man had moved, and he was getting concerned, "What are you waiting for, Ted?"

"Um, it's stuck."

Matt's head whipped around so fast he was surprised he didn't give himself whiplash, "_What?_"

"Well, I can't really move it. I mean, I can sort of rock back and forth like this," Ted moved his hips in demonstration, and Matt noticed that he was indeed not making any serious movement, "but it's not going to be doing any serious thrusting."

"How the hell did you stuck, Ted?"

Ted offered Matt a sheepish grin, "We didn't have any lube or anything, so I just spit on my hand and greased myself up. I thought it would be enough."

Matt shoved his face back in the pillow, mentally cursing Ted, the world, and the hotel room's lack of adequate lubrication, "This night cannot possibly get any worse." When Ted didn't offer a sarcastic comeback, Matt became concerned and invited himself into Ted's thoughts. He did not like what he found. "I'm _bleeding_?"

"Only a little," Ted leaned back and regarded the area where he and Matt connected, "Nothing serious. Actually, I think a little blood is expected. The first time anyway."

"Oh, trust me, this is definitely the only time we're ever doing this. Damnit, I should've known something like this would've happened." Matt shoved his head deeper into the pillow, wishing that everything he was experiencing was all some terrible nightmare. "Same thing happened to my cousin in high school."

"Your cousin got stuck having sex?"

"Not exactly like this. She fucked a dog. They've got a barb or something at the base of their dick."

"…Did you just compare my penis to a dog's?"

"Now's not really the time to get sensitive, Ted."

Reaching forward, Ted placed his hands on Matt's shoulders and began to massage them roughly, "Just try to relax some, Parkman. Maybe that'll loosen you up some. I think if I just give it a minute, it'll be a little easier."

"Fine, whatever, Ted. I don't how the hell I'm supposed to relax when you're stuck inside me, but I'll see what I can do." Matt shook Ted's hands off his shoulders and began to breathe deeply again, trying desperately to calm himself.

Ted began to rock his hips back and forth, and found that slowly and surely it was becoming easier to move inside of Matt. Within a matter of minutes, he found that he had enough freedom to make small but fevered thrusts. "There. I think I've got it now."

"Yeah, that's good," Matt found that the presence of Ted inside him was still fairly uncomfortable, but the overall sensation of getting fucked by him wasn't entirely unpleasant. As Ted began to build up a steady rhythm, Matt began to rock his own hips in time, surprising himself at how turned on he was becoming. Their little experimental encounter had had a rocky start, but now seemed to be worth the original trouble.

Just when Ted was beginning to really enjoy himself, and he was pushing into Matt with lust and determination, the other man let out a shuddering moan and spasmed beneath Ted. Matt moaned again, smaller and weaker this time, and fell to his stomach on top of the come-stained sheets of the motel bed. He seemed just as surprised as Ted to find that he had spent his load so quickly. "Oh, holy God. What the… what the hell just happened?"

Ted gave a half-hearted shrug, his hands still firmly on Matt's hips in order to keep himself balance, "I think I hit your prostate."

Matt nodded faintly, his energy now completely drained out of him, "Nice. Thanks, Ted."

"No problem," Ted, unsure of how to proceed, looked around the hotel room before focusing his eyes on Matt's back, "I wasn't really finished."

"Oh, right," Matt mumbled, realization that just because he was satisfied didn't mean that Ted was dawning on him, "Would you mind finishing yourself off?"

"No, that's cool."

"Okay then," Remembering their earlier predicament, Matt turned his head around to face Ted, "Can you pull out?"

"I think so," With a determined groan, Ted pushed down on Matt's hips with his hands for leverage and slid himself out of the other man. Standing up, Ted walked over to and sat down on the other bed decorating the tiny room, "I'm just going to jerk off over here."

"Alright then," Matt nodded and stood up himself, "I'm going to head to the shower and clean myself up."

"Probably a good idea," Ted's response was quick and felt forced. Truthfully, neither man was entirely sure of what the appropriate post-homosexual tryst conduct was, and both were entirely willing to pretend the entire night never happened.

"That was… well, not exactly the best sex ever, but not the worst either."

"Thanks, Parkman," Ted's voice dripping with sarcasm, "that's what I was shooting for. Not the worst sex ever. Glad to hear it."

"Well it's nice to see that sex hasn't changed our relationship, Ted. You're still an asshole."

"I'm not going to get all emotional on you just because we fucked, Parkman. I'm not a sixteen-year-old girl. This was just a one-time deal, anyway, right? So no need to get emotional about it."

"Right, one time only. Never going to happen again."

"Exactly. I have no interest in doing it with you again. Are you that hard-up for sex?"

Matt laughed, "Not anymore near that. No more sex between us. Once was more than enough."

"Damn straight." The two stood in awkward silence for a brief moment before Ted added, "Although, technically, I never actually really sucked you off, so to be fair, we didn't completely fulfill the bargain."

"That's a good point. We can't just leave things uneven like that."

"Not tonight, of course. I mean, we're both pretty rank and completely exhausted."

"Some other night then."

"Just to make things even."

"Of course."

"Not like we actually want to fuck each other again."

"I'm topping next time."

Ted's face broke into a wide grin, "We'll see about that."


End file.
